


May All Your Wounds Be Mortal

by coloredink



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Domestic, M/M, Memory Palace, Nostalgia, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 19:25:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7520185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal and Will spend their first Christmas together, after the fall, and finish merging their memory palaces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	May All Your Wounds Be Mortal

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the RAW fanthology.

Hannibal, without opening his eyes, reached up and seized the wrist of the hand that descended toward him. His assailant did not try to pull away but turned his hand to run his thumb over Hannibal's pulse. Hannibal forced his fingers to relax. "Will. What is it?"

"It's morning," Will replied. "Get up; it's time to wash the sheets."

Hannibal blinked his eyes open. Will's hair and beard were still damp from his shower; he smelled like soap and shampoo. Hannibal sat up. Now he was in the castle at the center of his mind. His mother had opened all the windows, and weak winter sunlight fell in pale beams against the floor. The air that came in with them was cold and crisp. "We will clean everything ourselves," she said to Hannibal and Will. "The servants will be with their families today."

He blinked again, and now Will was sitting on the bed beside him. His face was very close. "Where were you?" Will asked.

"You know very well," said Hannibal. "You were there."

Will smiled and gave a gentle snort through his nose. "My imagination only takes me so far," he said. "The castle I walk through is dark, and damp, and cold. The grounds are thick with weeds, and the stones are covered in moss."

"Mm. I take your point." Hannibal swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "Let us explore together, then."

"Together," Will agreed.

\-----

"What was the kitchen like?"

"Very large," Hannibal replied. "And modern, for the time. We didn't have many appliances that you find convenient today: no microwave, no food processor. Everything was done by hand."

"As you still insist on doing," Will said, without rancor, as he rolled out the dough for the dumplings.

Hannibal smiled as he minced the mushrooms. "The counters were wood. We didn't use cutting boards; we chopped directly on the counters, and they were scored with decades of knife use. Once every generation or so, they would need to be replaced, and the old wood would be used for kindling or given away."

Will paused in his rolling to run his fingers over the granite countertops, dusty with flour. The patterned stone turned to wood beneath his fingertips, streaked with black marks from cleavers and chef's knives. "Did you and your sister help in the kitchen?"

"Servants did our cooking most of the time, but Mother made sure we knew how to perform basic tasks. When I was three years old, she gave me a knife and showed me how to peel and cut up a roasted beet. It's one of my earliest memories." Hannibal swept the mushrooms into a nearby bowl.

"And your sister?" Will asked.

Hannibal put down his knife on the empty cutting board and looked out the window. Buenos Aires was empty of all but the most stalwart of locals, and a few tourists who meandered here and there along boulevards decorated with red ribbons and nonlocal pine wreaths, weighted down by the oppressive humidity. Indoors, behind closed doors and windows, they were protected by a shield of air conditioning.

"She preferred to play," Hannibal said. "She always did her tasks very poorly."

\-----

Will frowned at the dishes, lined up on the counter, as he wiped the sweat from the back of his neck with a dish towel. "It seems a shame to let them all get cold." 

Hannibal inspected his fingers, stained red with beet juice. "You wanted to observe the traditions. Come; we're supposed to bathe before dinner. I'll wash your hair."

Will gave Hannibal a startled, raised-eyebrows look; Hannibal had not volunteered this particular service before. But he didn't argue, and he preceded Hannibal to the bathroom, where he undressed while Hannibal filled the tub.

"Ah," Will sighed as he sank into the steaming water. "You don't actually have to wash my hair," he said as Hannibal drew up a stool. "There's not even that much of it."

"I like it," Hannibal replied. He used his cupped hands to pour water over Will's hairline.

"Mmm." Will had his eyes closed now. When his hair was wet enough to wash, Hannibal soaped his hands and began to work it into Will's hair, starting at the roots. "Where are you now?" Will asked.

Hannibal looked up. The master bath in their house in Buenos Aires was patterned with turquoise and ivory tile, chrome fixtures, and eggshell-white porcelain. But the bathroom in the castle had been large and dark and cavernous, same as all the other rooms. He had always felt small there. "Large. Dark. Stone. It would be a cold room, if not for the fireplace at one end, where the bathtub was. My memory of the room is of flickering firelight failing to penetrate the upper reaches, so the ceiling was always in shadow."

"This is opening a lot of doors for you," said Will, without opening his eyes. "Doors that haven't been opened in a long time."

Hannibal worked the soap down to the tips of Will's hair. "How much of the castle did you see?"

"Not much. It was night. Dark. Misty, during the day. I saw shadows and crumbling stone. I walked through a graveyard, the headstones overgrown with ivy. I saw a fountain filled with snails instead of water."

Hannibal pressed his fingertips into Will's scalp in circular motions. Will still had a scar on his forehead from where the saw had bit. Hannibal caressed it with a damp, soapy thumb. "It hasn't had any water in it for a long time. It was my cochlear garden."

A small line appeared between Will's eyebrows. "You had a snail garden?"

"Yes. Did you see fireflies? It wasn't the season for it."

"I saw the past." Will's throat bobbed as he swallowed. "I saw them as the sun set: thousands of tiny lights, swirling in the darkness. They were what led me to the fountain."

"I planted that garden for the fireflies," Hannibal said with a smile. "For them to feed on."

Will's lips twitched. "So macabre, even back then."

"I liked the fireflies," Hannibal replied. "Did you see the inside of the castle?"

"A little." Will tipped his head back. "I saw the cellar."

Hannibal drew a breath in through his nose. "Tell me what you saw."

"Later." Will opened his eyes, and Hannibal moved his hands away so that Will could dunk his head. Suds floated away and dispersed across the surface of the water. Will reappeared with a great intake of breath, hair plastered flat against his scalp, beard dripping. He shook water out of his eyes and told Hannibal, "Get in."

Hannibal hesitated; they hadn't done this since they'd both been bleeding.

"Come on," said Will. "Before the water gets cold."

\-----

"Would you like to do the honors?" Hannibal asked.

"I believe the honor should go to you," Will replied. He picked up the tablecloth.

Hannibal plunged his hand in the basket and came up with a handful of hay, which he scattered across the table. The golden fragrance of summer rose to meet him. When Hannibal looked up, he was in the formal dining room of the castle. Will waited on the other side of the table, folded cloth in his arms.

"What do you see?" Hannibal asked.

"That you're somewhere else again," Will replied. "Somewhere dark and made of stone."

Hannibal rested the tips of his fingers on the table and looked around. The fireplace behind him was already ablaze, but electric lights shimmered overhead. Trophies of past hunts lined the walls above his head: mostly deer, but the occasional boar and bear. He wondered if the tapestries were still there. Rotted away by now, probably, or stolen; even Chiyoh could not guard against everything. "There was never enough light in the castle, especially during the winter," he observed. "We did all we could: high windows, chandeliers, candles, torches. But there were always shadows."

Will snapped the tablecloth out and over the table, and pieces of hay shivered and scattered in its breeze before being swiftly covered. Hannibal walked around the perimeter and tugged until the cloth was straight on all sides. When he finished, he was in the dining room of their house again. Here, the table seated only six, and late afternoon light spilled in through the windows. The walls of their house were painted in golds and honeys, so it was as if sun poured through all the rooms.

Even with the two of them, it took several trips to bring all twelve dishes to the table: beet and mushroom soup; herring in tomato sauce; smoked salmon, sprinkled with dill; sauerkraut; mushroom dumplings; a pitcher of poppy seed milk; and more. There was hardly space on the table for their own settings, along with the centerpiece of fir boughs and a bundle of unthreshed rye.

After the last dish had been laid, Will went back in the kitchen and returned with two empty plates and a box of candles.

"There are many who aren't able to join us here," Hannibal said. "The plates could circle the table twice."

Will set a plate in front of a chair and struck the match. He centered the candle on the plate before he lit it. "For Will Graham," he said, and met Hannibal's gaze with a proud thrust of his chin. That defiance reminded Hannibal of when they first met. But now Will made eye contact, and his body didn't bow away from Hannibal when Hannibal moved closer.

Hannibal took the other plate, struck the match, and lit the candle. "For Hannibal Lecter."

\-----

"I see you in every room now," Hannibal said. "There are none that I can call my own. You've made yourself quite at home."

Will huffed out a laugh. His profile in the fading light was poignant and beautiful. "That makes two of us."

They sat in the courtyard, watching the sky turn pink at the edges and purple in the center like a bruise. It was still humid, but cooler now. A fan whirred at the edge of the courtyard, stirring the air across their hair and faces. It would have been more comfortable inside, but Will had wanted to wait outside, "where the stars were," he said.

"I built new rooms," said Will. "For my friends. Before I went to find you, the first time." He swallowed. "And then I closed them, after. Sealed off the corridors. The rooms with Abigail. The ones with you. In the end, all I had left was my own home. But I looked around, and there you were. Feeding my dogs. Breaking Mason Verger's neck. Tampering with my flies." He looked down at his hands. "It used to be my boat on the sea. But you changed that."

Hannibal cast his eyes up, searching for that first evening star. "And now? Are all the rooms open again?"

"And more. You know that; you opened them. Walked straight from your palace and into mine." Will looked at Hannibal. They sat side by side here, not across from each other as they had in his old office, what seemed like a lifetime ago. "What do you see?"

A fireplace, a few feet from their knees. Glasses of whiskey in their hands, the firelight winking from their cut crystal glasses. Hannibal blinked it away. Shadows crept across the courtyard. "I see us, here," he said. "There's no reason to be anywhere else."

\-----

They dined in amiable comfort, sampling all the dishes and commenting on the relative quality of each: the beet and mushroom soup was pronounced a success, as were the mushroom dumplings. Will, of course, liked the smoked salmon the best. They were both indifferent to the beet and bean salad.

When they had eaten their fill, they rose as one to clear the table. Will put away the leftovers while Hannibal rinsed the dishes and placed them in the dishwasher.

"We've timed this well," Hannibal said to Will as he dried his hands. "It's nearly midnight. Time to exchange gifts."

Will dropped a detergent pod into the dishwasher and shut the door. He twisted the dial, and the dishwasher began its quiet hum. "Shall we do it in the living room?"

The tree was unfortunately artificial, Latin America being what it was, but they had strung it with colorful lights and decorated it with straw ornaments. Hannibal lit a pine-scented candle and retrieved Will's gift from the mantelpiece. It was a small, flat box, wrapped in dark red paper with a forest-green ribbon. He did not hand it to Will right away.

"This is not a gift," he said, as he sat next to Will on the couch. "At least, it is not meant to be given as one. It must be bought."

Will raised his eyebrows. "Quid pro quo, Dr. Lecter?"

He only ever called Hannibal that when he was being cheeky. Hannibal smiled. "The price need not be a very high one."

"What do you want, then?"

"Tell me," said Hannibal, "what you saw in the cellar."

Will startled Hannibal with a laugh. "I was going to tell you anyway. That was going to be your gift."

Hannibal stilled. "I'm listening."

Will leaned in close; close enough that Hannibal could feel his heat; close enough that Will's breath was warm on Hannibal's ear when he spoke. "There was a prisoner down there."

Hannibal let his eyes close. "Yes, I know."

"He was caged in an alcove in the wall. Skinny, filthy, half insane. He had a beard halfway down his chest, matted with twigs. Your snails had taken over much of the castle grounds, and the cellar was covered in them. I think your prisoner was subsisting on snails, water, and the occasional pheasant or duck that Chiyoh brought him. Maybe she threw him a carrot once in a while, I don't know. It smelled foul and wet down there, worse than death. Like being forgotten."

Hannibal smirked, but he didn't open his eyes.

"I freed him," said Will. "I took him out to the woods. But he ran back to his cage and tried to kill Chiyoh, when she came to give him his food. She killed him in self-defense, stabbed him in the neck with a bone. I found her afterward, weeping. She accused me of setting her up."

"Did you?"

"Who knows?" said Will. "It's what you would have done. It's what you tried to do."

"You've succeeded then, where I failed," Hannibal said.

"That was when she decided to come with me to Italy," said Will. "She had no reason to stay, now that her ward was dead. But before we left, I." Hannibal heard Will take a deep breath, heard his fingers curl into the fabric of his trousers. "I changed him."

Hannibal drew in a deep breath through his nose.

"I bound his body with rope," said Will. "His legs together, and his arms in prayer. I gave him wings: one pair of broken glass and one pair of feathers. I covered his body with snails, even his face. And I hoisted him from the ceiling, so that he hung there with his wings spread and the candlelight reflecting off the glass, and I left him for the fireflies."

"Ah." Hannibal opened his eyes. They were hot and wet, and he placed one hand over his mouth.

"I wanted you to see it," said Will. He wasn't looking at Hannibal, but into the distant country of years gone by. Hannibal stood there with him, Will's hand in his, gazing with awe and reverence at the gift Will had left for him in his past.

"I see it," Hannibal said. "I see it now. It's beautiful." He squeezed Will's hand and pressed his present blindly in it.

Will unwrapped it there in the cellar, among the guttering candles and the fireflies, and he looked like art. Underneath the paper and ribbon was a simple cardboard box, the kind a pen or a watch might come in. But it was not a watch or a pen.

"This is," Will said. Inside the box lay a simple knife, the very same forgiveness that Will had dropped in a room in Florence, all those years ago. Engraved on the blade in flowing script were the words: _Che la mia ferita sia mortale_.

\---end---

**Author's Note:**

> [coloredink.tumblr.com](http://coloredink.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [sumiwrites.com](https://www.sumiwrites.com/) (if you wanna check out my original work)


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